Suse Linux 9.3 For Dummies- P23 doc

In this part H ere we go again — yet another Top Ten list . . . No, wait . . . a whole slew of Top Ten lists! It’s the signa- ture part of the For Dummies series. Hey, I can’t argue with success! I begin with a selected set of frequently asked questions (or FAQs, as everyone calls them) about SUSE Linux. Next comes the ten best things about SUSE. Then I present ten good resources for finding out more about SUSE. Finally, I end with the ten most frequently used SUSE Linux commands. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Chapter 20 Ten Frequently Asked Questions about SUSE In This Chapter ᮣ What does SUSE stand for? ᮣ Where can I find answers to SUSE Linux questions? ᮣ When is the next SUSE release? ᮣ Can I get ISO files for SUSE Linux from the Internet? ᮣ How do I do an FTP install of SUSE Linux? ᮣ How can I auto-login into KDE as another user? ᮣ How can I reboot after an apparent crash? ᮣ How do I schedule a command to run every 30 minutes? ᮣ How can I find all the huge files on my system? ᮣ Where can I find SUSE RPMs? I f you are new to SUSE Linux, you probably have lots of questions about SUSE (even if you already know Linux). I had questions when I first started using SUSE Linux, and I have been using Linux since 1991. Frequently Asked Questions — FAQs — are the time-honored solution to providing answers to common questions about a specific subject. In this chapter, I present ten such frequently asked questions about SUSE Linux. These are the questions that, in my opinion, are likely to be asked by beginners and experienced Linux users alike. I hope you find an answer or two that help you do your job with SUSE Linux. What Does SUSE Stand for and How Do You Pronounce It? The acronym SUSE came from the German name Software und System Entwicklung (Software and System Development). SUSE is pronounced soo-suh. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. The distribution was originally referred to by a mixed case name: SuSE. Now, however, the distribution’s name is written in all uppercase: SUSE. Eventually, SUSE’s origins as an acronym will probably be forgotten and it will be thought of as a name that doesn’t stand for anything at all. How Can I Find Answers to My SUSE Linux Questions? You can find helpful information about SUSE Linux at many online resources. Start with www.suse.com. Choose Support➪knowledgebase from that Web page’s menu. Then select SUSE as the product, type in one or more keywords, and click Search Now. If you don’t find the answer at www.suse.com, try searching newsgroups through the Advanced Groups Search on Google Groups: http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=en Type the search terms you prefer. You can even set the date ranges for the articles to search. If the newsgroup search does not give you the answer, do a Linux search on Google by visiting the search page at http://www.google.com/linux Type the search words and press Enter or click Google Search. For SUSE- specific answers, type SUSE in addition to the search words. If you also want to search the SUSE mailing lists, visit www.google.com and type lists site:lists.suse.com followed by the search words. For example, to search for DVD movie player you would type lists site:lists.suse.com DVD movie player into the search field. One of these online searches should get you the answer to your question. If not, you can post a question at one of the forums such as www.suseforums. com that are listed in Chapter 22. When Is the Next SUSE Linux Release? Everyone wants to know the answer to this question, including myself! Of course, the correct answer is, “Whenever Novell decides to release it.” Based 312 Part V: The Part of Tens Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. on past history, however, a new SUSE release seems to appear about every six months. Can I Get ISO Files for SUSE Linux from the Internet? When Novell releases a new version of SUSE Linux, it’s initially available only as a commercial product. However, about eight weeks after the release date of the latest version, Novell makes available for free the ISO image files for that version. Novell also offers the necessary files on its FTP server from where you can perform an FTP install. How Do I Do an FTP Install of SUSE Linux? Say that you have this book in hand, but a later version of SUSE Linux is now available for FTP install. Instead of installing the version on the companion CD or DVD, you can easily do an FTP install. To install SUSE Linux from one of many FTP servers that mirror the latest SUSE distribution, you have to perform the following major steps: 1. Download the SUSE boot image from the FTP server and burn a CD with that image. 2. Make a note of the FTP server’s IP address and the directory where the SUSE distribution’s files are located. 3. Boot the PC with the boot CD and then type a command at the boot prompt to begin an FTP install from the FTP server that you identify by its IP address. If you have a PC that runs Windows and has a high-speed Internet connec- tion, you can use that PC to download the boot image and burn the boot CD. You can also use the PC to look up the IP address of the FTP server. You also need to know the name of the network card installed in your PC because you have to manually load the driver before you can start the SUSE FTP install. You can find the FTP server’s IP address when you download the SUSE installer’s boot image. I explain the steps in this section. 313 Chapter 20: Ten Frequently Asked Questions about SUSE Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Installing SUSE from an FTP server can take two hours or more over a typical broadband DSL or cable modem connection to the Internet. Follow these steps to do an FTP install from an FTP server over the Internet: 1. Use a Web browser to open the list of FTP servers at www.suse.com/ us/private/download/ftp/int_mirrors.html and find an FTP server near you that’s marked complete (that means the server has the complete SUSE distribution and all updates). The list of servers is organized by country and it includes both FTP and HTTP (Web) servers. Go to the country nearest yours and pick the near- est server that’s marked complete. In a terminal window, type ping followed by the name of the FTP server (for example, mirror.mcs.anl.gov). You’ll then see the IP address of the FTP server on the next line (for example, 140.221.9.138). Write down that IP address for use later on. If you are performing this step in Microsoft Windows, you also use the ping command, but type the command in a Command Prompt window (choose Start➪Run and type cmd and press Enter). 2. Click your FTP server link and find the directory that contains the boot.iso file — that’s the SUSE installer’s boot image. The directory depends on the version of SUSE. For example, for version 9.2, the boot.iso file is in the FTP server’s pub/suse/i386/9.2/boot/ directory. The file is several tens of megabytes in size. 3. Download the boot.iso file and save it. 4. Burn the boot.iso image onto a CD. Use your PC’s CD burner application to burn the ISO image named boot.iso. 5. Go to the PC on which you want to do the SUSE FTP install, insert the boot CD, and restart the PC. If your PC isn’t set up to boot from the CD/DVD drive, you have to enter SETUP (by pressing a key such as F2 as the PC powers up) and change the order of the boot devices. The PC reboots and, after a few moments, a text screen displays a screen with a number of options. Use the arrow keys to move between list items and the buttons on the screen. 6. Use the arrow keys to select the Manual Installation option and press Enter. The installer shows a list of languages. 7. Select the language and press Enter. The installer displays a list of keyboard maps — the language-dependent layouts for the keyboard. 314 Part V: The Part of Tens Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 8. Select the keyboard language and press Enter. The installer displays the Main menu. 9. Use the arrow keys to select Kernel Modules (Hardware Drivers) and press Enter. The installer displays a list of choices that includes options to load driver modules as well as view names of loaded modules. 10. Use the arrow keys to select Load Network Card Modules and press Enter. The installer displays a list of network driver modules, organized by the name of the network card. 11. Use the arrow keys to select your network card and press Enter. The installer prompts for any parameters for the driver. Press Enter if there are no parameters. If all goes well, the installer successfully loads the network driver module and displays a message. Press Enter to continue. 12. Press the right-arrow key to select Back and press Enter. You will be back at the Main menu. 13. Use arrow keys to select Start Installation/System and press Enter. On the next screen, select Start Installation/Update and press Enter. The installer displays a list of source mediums — this is where you indicate where the installer can find the files it needs to perform the installation. 14. Select Network as the source medium and press Enter. The installer prompts you for the network protocol. 15. Select FTP as the network protocol and press Enter. A dialog box prompts you to determine whether to configure the net- work automatically by using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). If your network uses DHCP as most do, select Yes and press Enter. Otherwise, you have to enter the IP address and the name server’s IP address at this step. The installer then prompts for the IP address of the FTP server. 16. Enter the IP address of the FTP server that you found in Step 1 (for example, enter 140.221.9.138 for the FTP server mirror.mcs.anl.gov). The installer prompts you if you want to use a username and password to connect to the FTP server. Because the FTP servers support anonymous FTP — which means anyone can log in with the username anonymous — select No and press Enter. The installer also prompts if you want to use an HTTP proxy. Unless your PC is behind a proxy (which may be the case at some organizations), select No and press Enter. The installer then prompts for the name of the directory where the SUSE files are located. 315 Chapter 20: Ten Frequently Asked Questions about SUSE Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 17. Enter the name of the directory on the FTP server where the SUSE Linux files are located and press Enter. The directory name would be the parent directory of the location where you found the boot.iso file in Step 1. For example, if the boot.iso file is in pub/suse/i386/9.2/boot/, you should type pub/suse/i386/9.2/ and press Enter. The installer displays a message informing you that it is loading data into ramdisk (which refers to an area of memory that acts as a hard drive). When the installer finishes downloading data, the YaST (that’s what the SUSE installer is called) installer starts and displays its initial GUI screen. From this point on, the installation steps are the same as the ones for a CD/DVD install, which I explain in Chapter 2. You should jump to the point where the YaST installer displays its initial GUI screen. How Can I Auto-Login into the KDE Desktop as Another User? If yours is the only user account on your SUSE Linux system and you use the KDE desktop, you are probably accustomed to the convenience of auto-login. Basically, you just power up SUSE Linux and you are automatically logged into the KDE desktop. You might face the question of changing the auto-login to another user if you have defined additional user accounts on your SUSE Linux system (for exam- ple, for your spouse or kids). If you want the auto-login to use another user account, it’s easy to make that change from the KDE desktop by following these steps: 1. Choose Main Menu➪Control Center. The KDE Control Center starts. 2. Click System Administration in the left pane. Icons for several system administration categories appear in the left pane. 3. Click Login Manager in the left pane. Login Manager options appear in tabs in the right pane. 316 Part V: The Part of Tens Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 4. Click Administrator Mode. A dialog box prompts you for the root password. 5. Type the root password and click OK. Login Manager options reappear with everything enabled (because you have entered administrator mode). 6. Click the Convenience tab. The Convenience tab’s options appear, as shown in Figure 20-1. The Enable Auto-Login box is checked and you can see the username for which the auto-login is enabled. 7. Click the User drop-down menu and select the user account that you want to use for auto-login. If the Enable Auto-Login box is not checked, click on it until it shows a check mark. Although auto-login is convenient, it’s definitely not good for security. You should enable auto-login only if you are using the SUSE Linux system in a safe environment such as your home. Turn auto-login off from the Convenience tab mentioned in Step 6. Figure 20-1: From KDE Center’s Login Manager you can enable auto-login for a user. 317 Chapter 20: Ten Frequently Asked Questions about SUSE Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. If My System Crashes, Can I Press the Reset Button to Reboot? Even though your mouse or keyboard seems to be dead, this does not neces- sarily mean that everything in your system has crashed. Therefore, you should not immediately reach for the reset button. In case it’s the GUI desktop that’s hung, press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to kill the X server and restart it. If this works, you should see a graphical login screen from which you can log in again. If restarting X does not help, press Ctrl+Alt+F2 and see if you can get a text console with a login prompt. If you see the login prompt, login with your username and password. Then type su - and type the root password to become root. After that, type reboot to safely reboot the PC. If you don’t get a text console by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2, try to log into the system from another machine on the network (type ssh followed by your SUSE Linux system’s IP address). You can become root by typing su - and then type reboot to reboot the PC. Of course, this last option works only if you have multiple PCs in a local area network. If nothing works, just wait some time, make sure that there is no hard drive activity (many PCs have a light that blinks when the hard drive is active; the hard drive also makes noise that you may be able to hear), and then press the reset button. How Can I Schedule a Command to Run Every 30 Minutes? You can run a command or a script (which is a file containing other com- mands) every so often by using crontab. You schedule recurring jobs by placing job information in a file with a specific format and submitting this file with the crontab command. A program called crond checks the job informa- tion every minute and executes the recurring jobs at the specified times. Because the crond runs recurring jobs, such jobs are also referred to as cron jobs. To submit a cron job, follow these steps: 318 Part V: The Part of Tens Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. 1. Prepare a shell script (or an executable program in any programming language) that can perform the recurring task you want to perform. You can skip this step if you want to execute an existing program periodically. 2. Prepare a text file with information about the times when you want the shell script or program (from Step 1) to execute, and then submit this file by using crontab. You can submit several recurring jobs with a single file. Each line with timing information about a job has a standard format with six fields — the first five specify when the job runs, and the sixth and subsequent fields constitute the actual command that runs. For example, here is a line that executes the myjob shell script in a user’s home directory every 30 minutes: 0,30 * * * * $HOME/myjob 3. Suppose the text file jobinfo (in the current directory) contains the job information. Submit this information to crontab with the follow- ing command: crontab jobinfo That’s it! You are set with the cron job. From now on, the cron job runs at regular intervals (as specified in the job information file), and you receive mail messages with the output from the job. To verify that the job is indeed scheduled, type the following command: crontab -l The output of the crontab -l command shows the cron jobs currently installed in your name. To remove your cron jobs, type crontab -r. How Can I Find All the Huge Files on My SUSE Linux System? You can type a one-line incantation to do this job for you. Here are the steps: 1. If you are at a graphical desktop such as KDE or GNOME, open a terminal window. 2. Type su - and then enter the root password to become root. 319 Chapter 20: Ten Frequently Asked Questions about SUSE Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. [...]... bigfiles Where Can I Find More SUSE RPMs? Software for SUSE Linux is usually distributed in the form of RPM files That’s why it’s common to refer to the software as RPM You would want to find RPMs that are meant for SUSE Linux (as opposed to RPMs meant for Red Hat or Fedora) One good place to look for SUSE RPMs is the Packman site at the following URL: http://packman.links 2linux. org/ This site organizes... Ten that adorns every For Dummies book This is that chapter — with a list of what I think are the ten best things about SUSE YaST — The Super Sysadmin Tool One of the best things about SuSE Linux is YaST — Yet Another Setup Tool — the system setup and configuration tool that makes SUSE Linux easy to install and maintain If you have installed SUSE Linux, you have already used YaST For any sysadmin task... Windows Partitions and USB Memory Stick If you have Windows partitions, SUSE Linux automatically mounts them so you can easily access files in your Windows partition For example, in a dual boot Windows XP /SUSE Linux system, you probably find the Windows XP partition mounted at /windows directory in the Linux file system If for some reason Linux does not mount the Windows XP partition automatically, you can... desktop ᮣ Support for laptops (power management) ᮣ Easy access to Windows shares ᮣ Cute gecko mascot ᮣ SUSE s increasing popularity I am often asked by friends and acquaintances what’s so great about SUSE Linux and why should they consider using it (or perhaps switch to it from another Linux distribution) I have gotten into the habit of listing what you might call the selling points of SUSE Linux When I... Browsing on the KDE desktop in your SUSE Linux system and the network browser automatically detects and shows you the Windows workgroups in your local area network You can then browse the shared folders by clicking on a workgroup and then on icons for specific Windows PCs You can easily copy documents from the Windows shares to your SUSE Linux system or open them using Linux software such as OpenOffice.org... click to turn off the Enable Auto-Login check box Good Support for Laptops SUSE Linux continues to improve upon some features that are important to laptop users When you run your laptop on its battery, you want to conserve power by shutting down various parts of the system when you are not doing work SUSE Linux can do this through its support for ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) You can... capabilities and the YaST GUI tool, an average user can easily handle the SUSE Linux installation The installer makes easy even a potentially complex step as resizing the Windows partition Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark Chapter 21: The Ten Best Things about SUSE on the hard drive to make room for SUSE Linux All you have to do is indicate the size of the Windows partition... SUSE Linux on most PCs without any trouble If you add hardware after you install SUSE Linux, you can connect the hardware to the PC, power it on, and then run the appropriate hardware configuration module from the YaST Control Center (see Chapter 17 for more on the YaST Control Center) Smooth and Easy Installation SUSE Linux installation is neither oversimplified nor unnecessarily complex — it’s just... watermark 323 324 Part V: The Part of Tens Automatic Login at the KDE Desktop Automatically logging in to the KDE desktop is not good for security, but it’s convenient when your SUSE Linux system is in a secure environment such as your home After you boot the system, SUSE Linux automatically logs you in and you can start at the KDE desktop By the way, if you are in an office with other people and want... during installation and setup For all detected hardware, SUSE Linux loads any drivers needed to access the hardware and takes care of any configuration steps such as adding entries in the /etc/fstab configuration file and creating subdirectories in the /media directory where a storage device could be mounted The excellent hardware detection means that you can usually install SUSE Linux on most PCs without . Questions about SUSE In This Chapter ᮣ What does SUSE stand for? ᮣ Where can I find answers to SUSE Linux questions? ᮣ When is the next SUSE release? ᮣ Can I get ISO files for SUSE Linux from the. file — that’s the SUSE installer’s boot image. The directory depends on the version of SUSE. For example, for version 9. 2, the boot.iso file is in the FTP server’s pub /suse/ i386 /9. 2/boot/ directory doesn’t stand for anything at all. How Can I Find Answers to My SUSE Linux Questions? You can find helpful information about SUSE Linux at many online resources. Start with www .suse. com. Choose